


Timestamp: A few months later, all new problems

by Tenoko1



Series: How the Other Side Lives verse [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Season/Series 09, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Don't believe me? Ask the dishes, F/M, Fluff, I can make Becky likeable
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-08-10 22:56:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20143381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tenoko1/pseuds/Tenoko1
Summary: Alfie sat in one of the chairs, laptop in front of him, books and papers spread over the majority of the table surface. His blond hair was a mess from where he kept raking his fingers through it and rapidly scratching his scalp in irritation as the words in his head refused to write themselves.Becky set his tea near his right hand. “How goes the prophetting?” Frowning as she settled into her seat, she tilted her head. “Prophecy-ing? Prophecizing?” She blew an errant lock of hair out of her eyes and brought her steaming mug to her lips. "How's the future?"





	Timestamp: A few months later, all new problems

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Boompowkablam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Boompowkablam/gifts).

> This is for [boompowkablam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/boompowkablam) ([Tumblr](https://boompowkablam.tumblr.com/)) who loves _How the Other Side Lives_ and asked for a follow up on a favorite pairing.

The apartment was quiet in a way that was peaceful instead of uncomfortable.

Granted, Becky never had a problem with quiet or solitude— save for that it _could _get lonely. Before, anyway.

The tread of her fluffy slippers shuffling across the hardwood floors of the kitchen, she flicked off the stove burner and lifted the glass teapot. As she poured green tea into two mugs, she smiled at how much of her roommates' personalities were reflected in the ceramic items. One was a simple and elegant design. The other was loud and colorful, covered in comic book heroes.

She liked both of them better than her own mugs.

Her favorite mug was pretty. It was a sort of red, looking as though it had been painted with a brush around the outside and inside. It matched the other mugs and plates that had come in the dish set.

Generic. Plain. Basic.

Hands stilling, she bit her bottom lip, reconsidering the steaming mugs of tea.

That was a good analogy or metaphor, she thought.

Them. And then her.

Everyone. And then Becky.

Inhaling a sharp, deep breath, she shook off the melancholic thoughts; told the voice in her head to go fork itself on a chainsaw. She was awesome. She was Becky Fucking Rosen.

She may not have had Sarah Blake’s stunning beauty and easy grace.

She may not have had the genius and charisma of Charlie Bradbury.

But being Becky was good. Good enough, anyway.

She was brave-- or could be when needed.

When she made up her mind to do something, that was exactly what she did-- and that was commendable.

She could grapple down from a skylight to steal a cursed artifact like nobody’s business— and that was just as important as Sarah’s ability to charm people to distraction or Charlie’s mad genius computer hacking skills!

Jerking her chin in a nod, Becky grabbed the mugs of tea and headed for the dining room table.

Alfie sat in one of the chairs, laptop in front of him, books and papers spread over the majority of the table surface. His blond hair was a mess from where he kept raking his fingers through it and rapidly scratching his scalp in irritation as the words in his head refused to write themselves.

She set the tea near his right hand. “How goes the prophetting?” Frowning as she settled into her seat, she tilted her head. “Prophecy-ing? Prophecizing?” She blew an errant lock of hair out of her eyes and brought the steaming mug to her lips. “How’s the future?”

“More dramatic than it has to be,” he groused, messing up his hair further as he dropped his head into his hands, elbows planted on the table. She hooked a finger around the handle of his mug and drew it back to safety. “If people would learn to use their _words_ it would make my job easier and save everyone some trouble.” He threw himself back in his seat. “I was an angel before this! Never-- not ever-- did my job require me write. Not like this. Not novels. I am _not_ a writer--”

“You are now.”

“And I would argue there’s been a mistake--”

“God doesn’t make mistakes.”

“Or! Nobody calls Him out on them!”

“Or Her.”

He pointed at her and she couldn’t bite back a smile. She knew angels could be scary, especially when angry, but even at his most powerful, she couldn’t picture her boyfriend’s anger as being little more than adorable. Which was probably why he had never been a frontline warrior.

While she might should have felt bad for seeing his stress and anxiety as cute and endearing, she _had_ made him tea, and that counted for something.

“I am convinced God is a man,” he insisted. “There’s a distinct lack of empathy in the way everything is designed. Focus on the micro details, but overlooking the big picture. ‘Yeah, humans need oxygen to live but it’s also what makes them age and kills them.’ I mean, there are better ways for population control! Or, ‘hey, this human plus heat equals an asthma attack! And yes, they are breathing, but that doesn’t mean they’re getting air!’ Why didn’t we have a trial run?”

“Wasn’t the time before Noah’s Ark and the Flood the trial period?”

“No!” he exclaimed, holding up an index finger, nose scrunched. “And I don’t know _what _that was, except for a whole lot of overtime _for me_ and every other angel involved in terraforming, geology, biology, botany, zoology, _and _agriculture once the water receded. Don’t get me started on all the paperwork for Death and the reapers with everybody _dead_. Complete disaster. We had to start all over!”

She had her jaw propped in her hand and was smiling, all warmth and unadulterated fondness. “I love when you go on these rants.”

“‘Well, I guess it's time to smite the humans again. Flood the whole planet. Put it underwater for _six months_, then we start over. Tell Noah to put only two of everything on the ark,’” he said, dropping his voice down low and rocking side-to-side all wooden and awkward before he was animated again. “Like, no! Noooo! I am-- _was_\-- the Angel of Pollenation! Samandriel: little and stressed out, okay? Do you have any _idea_ how hard it is to recreate harvests and seasons when everything is _mud _and there are, like, _two _bees and birds? I had a point! What was it?”

She grinned. “You’re not a writer.”

“_I am not a writer!_” he exclaimed, hands in the air.

She twisted with a spluttered laugh, face buried in her folded arms as her whole body shook with uncontainable snorts and giggles.

He scowled at her, before sipping primly on his tea. “I’m glad my suffering amuses you.”

“I’m sorry,” she laughed, “I’m sorry!”

“I have an important assignment--”

“God-ordained _voyeurism_!” she said, grinning and wiping tears from her eyes.

“No, thank God.” He waved a hand through the air. “It's a fade-to-black. I was already murdered. I don’t more trauma in my life by being able to see my brother and his boyfriend having sex. I came back to life as a Prophet of the Lord, not an erotica novelist.” Becky choked on her tea. “Now, not only am I dealing with Team Free Will over here-- which, honestly, they’ve gotten better about their communication skills, but their lives are still a mess. Sam’s dating Sarah, Dean’s dating Cas, also, let’s try to juggle that with fighting monsters and, well, Metatron was actually easy to beat, it was all sort of underwhelming, and Naomi’s not causing trouble anymore, but, hey, let’s start a foster program for angels that chose to stay on earth once Metatron made them all fall!”

“Yeah,” she said, “but those are all good things. Or, well, not as bad as they could be.”

“Sure, but that doesn’t mean they’re easy to translate into words and put on paper so as to recreate a mental image of things that happened.” He gestured to a stack of books he had been studying and taking notes from. “Doesn’t mean I was prepared to be the one to have to do it. I was tasked with chronologing their lives, but I had to study how to _be _a writer first. I know bees and pollination and hives! I could have come back a beekeeper! But good luck to me going, ‘uh, yeah, hi. I think you’ve got the wrong angel? This is not my department.’”

The hint of a smile in the crook of her mouth grew. “Join the club. I think that’s a theme lately. You’re learning to be a writer. I’m learning how to be your literary agent and a hunter on the side.” She grinned, teeth flashing. “I enjoyed that museum heist probably way more than I should have.”

He smiled. “It sounded fun. Sorry I missed your happy dance on the roof that ended with you tangled in your grappling cables.”

"That happened once."

His smile grew, all unabashed affection on his features and in his eyes. "I hate I missed it."

She rolled her eyes and waved away the comment as a pink blush colored her fair skin. “Point being: angels are learning to be human. Team Free Will is learning to juggle the normal with the crazy. Our hunts are going fantastic. You’re getting better at writing. We’re doing great getting the books published.” Drawing in a breath, she paused, head to one side and face scrunching. “Do you know the point of the books? Chuck wasn’t sure when I asked him.”

Alfie slumped low in his seat, sulkily drinking his tea and giving the laptop screen a withering look. “Apparently, in a far distant future, in a galaxy far, far away--”

“Really?”

“No.” She scowled and he winked. “But, humans will leave Earth and begin life spread across the stars--”

She held up a hand, frowning. “Wait. Stop.” He angled his head. “Are we talking _Star Trek_, _Firefly_, _Doctor Who_, or _Gundam Wing_ ‘human beings leave Earth to begin a new life in space colonies’? They’re all very different and _specific_, Alfie.”

Lips pursed he hedged, “Uh… _Firefly_? I guess? Anyway, legends and stuff basically get… forgotten, too busy with new planets and new problems. The books, though, will be digitized and eternal, and the only source of information left regarding how to fight monsters and the supernatural.”

“Wendigos in space?”

“Imagine a carnival sideshow displaying a wendigo in stasis as an extraterrestrial-- meanwhile, they think it’s a dead, mutated dog or something. Demons can hitch a ride in people. Vampires. Werewolves. Shapeshifters. Skinwalkers. Majority of them can adapt and keep going. There will need to be new generations of hunters.”

She stared at him, eyes wide and dancing with wonder as her mind began crafting the image together. “And you’re responsible for making sure they know how.”

He inclined his head, a slow, deliberate dip of his chin before his gaze swiveled to his computer screen and the forlorn look from earlier returned. “Further, when the _Supernatural_ series ends, I start a spin-off.”

She straightened, spine rigid as a steel rod. “Oh?”

Heaving a sigh, Alfie set aside his empty mug to rifle through books and notepads. He retrieved a worn and beaten composition notebook, corners bent and dozens of colorful tabs jutting out.

She reached for it when he held it out, carefully turning it over in her hands so she could examine the cover and its title written in permanent marker.

Alfie had returned to his writing, flipping through a book for expressing emotion through body language as he shot occasional glances at the laptop screen.

“Wayward Sisters?” Becky asked, pads of her fingers trailing over the words before folding back the cover.

His fingers typed out an irregular rhythm on the keys. “Yeah. That’s a few years in the future, but essentially when Team Free Will retires, these girls pick up the torch. It’s not a very clear picture yet. Too far off, I guess. Something about an academy of hunters? There’s a whole bunch of Men of Letters bases, and the veterans in the hunter community start heading different ones. Jody pretty much just runs her deal straight out of her house, taking in strays and runaways.”

“Claire?” Becky demanded, voice high and eyes wide. He stilled and raised his eyes to hers. Her skin was pale. “She’s gonna lose _both _her parents?”

He winced. “Jimmy’s already gone--”

“Yeah, but Amelia isn’t! Not yet!” She slapped the book closed and slammed it to the table surface, pushing up and out of her seat, already to the kitchen and grabbing her phone before Alfie was halfway to her.

“Becky, no!” he insisted, scrambling around the table with a hand outstretched.

She gave him a stricken look. “Alfie, I am not gonna let that poor kid lose her dad _and_ her mom! Cas wouldn’t let that happen, either!”

He curled his hands around hers, lowering them and the phone as he met her eyes. “There are things we can change and things we can’t,” he said, voice soft and gentle. “This happens. No scenario stops it.”

She was breathing hard, voice unsteady. “Well, then, we… we call Cas! A-and we tell him to reach out. We start building her a support network now and…” her words died off as he shook his head. Her brow furrowed, knuckles white around her phone. “Why not?”

“Because then she thinks he knew beforehand and didn’t stop it and they’re never able to have a relationship because of it. She’s going to need them, all of them, afterward.” He carefully pried the phone from her hands and set it down. “If we try to help her _now_, she won’t have _any _of them later, because she won’t _trust _them or anyone associated with them.”

She jerked away from him, storming away and then whirling, to yell, “I lost both my parents!” Her fists shook by her sides before she swept an arm out. “You expect me to just_ let _that happen to _her_? She’s a _kid_! I _can’t_ do that, Samandriel!”

He held up both his hands, fingers spread. “I didn’t say it was fair.”

“Because it isn’t!”

“But there are things we _can _change and things we _can’t_,” he reiterated.

“Then what _can _we change about this?” He started to shake his head and she jabbed a finger at him, lips pulling back from her teeth on a snarl, “Don’t tell me ‘nothing!’”

“I don’t know,” he admitted, hands falling to his sides. “It’s several years in the future. I can’t see it all yet. I can’t always see what would happen if I did this or that. Amelia dies, Becky. That’s set.”

She lowered her hands, breaths short and aborted as she racked her brain for an alternative. “What if… what if we call Cas--” he opened his mouth and she held up a finger, “but rather than warning him, I just asked-- as a general curiosity-- how Jimmy’s family is and if he checks on them.”

Alfie squinted at her mouth twisting. “It’s already started, Becks. Amelia’s estranged. Claire’s been in juvie more than once--”

“Yeah, okay, but! When Cas isn’t able to get a hold of them-- and his reaching out is_ his own _idea-- he’d call a friend to help. Someone in law enforcement who would know how to follow the trail of _people _instead of monsters.” Alfie looked off to the side, out the tall windows. When he didn’t say anything, she swallowed hard and tried to quash any hope, but her voice was still high and uneven when she asked, “Would that work?”

He said nothing, gaze unfocused and distant.

She waited, wringing her hands and biting her bottom lip until she drew blood. Because she couldn’t-- _could not_\-- stand by and do nothing while another girl lost her parents and was left with no one.

Alfie blinked, then shook himself, turning his head enough to look at her.

She caught the phone as he tossed it to her.

“You are going to have to be _calm _for the conversation,” he warned. Her face lit, and he held up a finger in warning. “It won’t save Amelia, Becky. ...but it can change things so that Jody takes Claire in a lot _sooner_ rather than later.” She nodded rapidly, phone clutched to her chest and hope blooming. He heaved a sigh and lowered his hand. “Make the call-- but remember:_ off-hand curiosity_, Becky. He’s _knows _you’re dating a prophet. Treat the conversation with all the care of a heist.”

“I can do that,” she insisted in a small voice. “I can bring up the museum heist. Ask how Heaven judges crimes committed for the sake of good and all that.”

“Very Robin Hood of you,” he murmured, a hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth.

She darted forward, kissing his cheek and hugging him tight, “Thank you!” before she was halfway up the stairs to her room and already dialing the number.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! Please remember to always properly feed and water your fanwork creators: like, comment, kudos, reblog (and tag), and rec their fics/gifs/graphics/artwork/podfics/vids/other works to your friends. You may think they probably get praise already, but I promise you they don't. And certainly not enough. Small things will make their day and WEEK. If you're reading a fic/comic, watching an edit, admiring art, or something else, be it for the first time or the fiftieth, whether it's new or they posted it 10+ years ago, let the creator know.


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